Chad’s News

I’ve heard various ways of dealing with telemarketers, but this one is definitely the funniest. Warning: some of the language is NSFW.

http://joshualowry.vox.com/…
(via digg)

With the advent of smart phones, we are beginning to see the proliferation of cell phone viruses.

http://money.cnn.com/…

This woman had a very bad experience after she recycled her cell phone prior to the end of the calling plan. It would also be a good idea to wipe the saved numbers and any personal information. I wonder if that can be done all at once via some sort of reset function?

http://www.postgazette.com/…

This topic has been popping up in quite a few of my news sources, and it just makes sense. A large number of people don’t want complicated cell phones, and this attitude seems to be more true of older people. The problem is that the cell phone market is saturated, and the cell providers are looking to extra features as their way of increasing revenue. (Remember, as a publicly traded company, it’s never sufficient to maintain the status quo—you must continue to grow and increase revenue in order to increase shareholder value). The net result of this conflict between the customer’s desires and the company’s desires is a renewed focus on usability. The iPod is an over-hyped, too-expensive MP3 player. But, as the article states, it took over the market due (in part) to its simplicity and ease of use. It’s good to see that other companies are finally figuring this out as well.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/…

A true indicator of how difficult it is to end a tax, even one that was supposed to be temporary. Save those phone bills—I’m betting that the standard refund won’t cover the actual tax paid.

http://www.usatoday.com/…

(Those not familiar with Skype and VOIP may want to review my previous post on the subject.)

For the rest of the year, SkypeOut (computer-to-phone) calls are free as long as both the computer and the phone are in the US or Canada. I’m not sure how useful this will be, as most cell phones have free long-distance—Skype’s primary selling point is cheap international calls.

http://www.consumerist.com/…

Official Skype announcement: http://share.skype.com/…

VoIP is a great way to save a bunch of money on phone services—especially if you make international calls or still pay for long-distance. The simplest way to get started is to install Skype on your computer. To make the process easier, USRobotics has developed an adapter that lets you use your existing land-line phone as a VoIP handset. NETGEAR, going a step further, has announced a wireless Skype phone that can call anyone in the world via Skype (as long as it can make a WiFi connection to the internet).

I can’t say I’m big on text messaging—if I have something to say, I just call or email the person. That said, this site provides an easy and free way to send text messages from your computer. You just send the message as an email to

   <phone_number>@teleflip.com

(where “<phone_number>” is a 10-digit phone number without dashes). I tried it with my own number, and it worked fine.

http://www.teleflip.com

2.5 billion didn’t seem like a huge amount, until I realized it was approximately 35 percent of the world’s population. Pretty amazing, considering cell phones have only been around for a couple decades.

http://www.tgdaily.com/…

A new type of denial-of-service attack. It’s still conceptual, but probably not for long.

http://www.iht.com/…

Now this is something even I would shell out bucks to purchase. They don’t allow portable music players at work, but they do allow cell phones. Look for the official announcement on Sep. 7th.

Link: http://www.iht.com/…

Update (09/07/2005): Here it is, the Motorola ROKR. Holds up to 100 songs, costs $250, and is exclusively supported by Cingular.

Remember in the movie Minority Report when the billboards scanned your retina and tailored their advertising to you? Well here’s the first step in that direction.

Link: http://www.newscientist.com/…

Update (08/24/2005): This type of advertising is known as BlueCasting.